Gartner, the leading firm specializing in international research and business advisory, has declared that Magento has achieved the gold standard of digital commerce for 2018. Every year, Gartner researches and analyzes digital commerce businesses that continually exceed their company goals and that are always striving to enhance and improve their online platforms. Businesses that meet Gartner’s high criteria fit into the “magic quadrant,” which rates businesses based on their leadership, ability to achieve goals and the completeness of their overall vision.
Magento being named one of the highest rated digital commerce businesses in the magic quadrant isn’t an achievement that should be taken for granted. Magento was selected out of thousands of companies worldwide to achieve this honor due to its versatility and dependability. Read on to learn more.
Magento’s Growth
Magento has grown enormously since Varien, Inc. first released the open-source platform software back in 2008. Varien, Inc. was a small, private company that needed volunteers to come in and help them develop this first software. From these fairly humble beginnings, Magento has expanded into a thriving, worldwide platform that powers thousands of e-commerce stores.
Magento’s growth and popularity allowed the company to improve and enhance their products so much that they released Magento 2.0 in 2015. This new platform offers omnichannel shopping options, enhanced scalability, better website performance, and full website customization. Some of the top companies in the United States trust Magento with aspects of their online stores, including Nike, Ford, and Shutterfly, but Magento has also helped thousands of small businesses launch their websites.
Costs and Benefits for Businesses
Magento owes much of its popularity to its reasonable price for the wide range of services it offers. Magento community edition software is actually free to download and install! While the community edition is free, it features limited options. Businesses will end up having to pay for extensions, server fees, and more. Most business owners choose to invest in a custom Magento website that has dozens of features that for making websites look great and functional. Just a few benefits of a custom site include:
A full set of tools that allows you to easily manage your product details, stock, item availability, shipping costs, and product discounts.
- A built-in, one-page checkout process for customers.
- Support for multiple product types, such as configurable items and virtual products.
- A simple product listing interface.
- Full access to reports essential for e-commerce businesses, such as total sales reports, tax reports, most viewed products, and more.
SEO and Customization
Search engine optimization, or SEO, involves taking steps to make your business look appealing to search engines and show up in more search results. Magento is one of the most search engine-friendly platforms without needing any customization whatsoever by having fast page-loading times, supporting search engine friendly-URLs, and generating Google sitemaps. But Magento also makes it easy for business owners to customize their websites to take full advantage of SEO to help increase overall revenue, attract more customers, and increase their online visibility.
Magento’s fully customizable websites allow businesses to have the total creative freedom of their online stores. Business owners can choose among thousands of different templates and themes for their websites and can choose what pages they want to feature on their online stores. For example, you can link all of your company’s social media accounts to your website, or have a page that features customer reviews of your products. Best of all, Magento’s websites are also mobile-friendly so customers will have a great shopping experience whether they use a phone or a computer.
Omnichannel Retail
Through Magento, even small e-commerce businesses have the opportunities to list their products on sites such as Amazon, Walmart, and eBay. Magento makes it easy to keep track of your inventory and sales on multiple online platforms. Your business visibility is bound to increase, and your products will be seen by a much larger audience than if you sell through your company website and physical stores alone.
Magento aims for a seamless omnichannel shopping experience for customers. This means that customers will have similar shopping experiences whether they shop in-store or online by using a phone, tablet, or laptop. Businesses successful in omnichannel strategies are able to integrate all different types of communication together to ensure that customers are having the same excellent service no matter where they shop.
Customer Satisfaction
With the thousands of options, features, and services Magento offers, it’s no surprise that business owners are satisfied with choosing Magento as their online platform. Magento features a page on their website entirely dedicated to businesses who have been successful after launching their online stores. Hundreds of store owners have thanked Magento for helping their businesses expand and thrive in today’s online marketplace.
For more guidance with Magento and its many features, find us at Wagento.com.
